3 Customer Success Processes You Need in 2020

Even though CS is very commonly mistaken for Customer Support, it’s much more than that. Customer Success is about supporting the customer on various levels for them to achieve their goals. It’s a win-win situation.

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Table of contents

Introduction

Furthermore, what may be even more important, we should always have in mind that it has been proven many times that the best marketing is word of mouth. Excellent Customer Success provided to the current customers creates more leads. It’s simple as that.

I’m sure here comes the next question: “But if we don’t know anything about CS, how could we implement it?”

We’ve got you covered. Below is the guide on the Customer Success processes that will give you the best results from the get-go.

Lead Creation

No new leads mean no new users and it’s clear what that means for the business. It has been proven that LEAD MAGNETS work. You need to predict potential areas that would be the most interesting for your target group. If you take into consideration Customer Success, your goal is to create the content that makes your potential customers feel well taken care of, and that responds to their needs at this stage of Customer Lifecycle. The idea of this Customer Success process is to ensure them that their success if your primary focus. It’s not only about having a sale or some splashy, eye-catching graphics (but it usually doesn’t hurt).

What you can do, is show them that YOU CARE. What’s more, you should give them all the tools possible (within your means, of course) to achieve their success and equip them with the knowledge they may need. It’s about creating webinars, shareable resources, infographics, articles, etc. Give something before trying to get something from them in return.

A good example of this strategy is creating a webinar on creating great email campaigns. It’s about shareable knowledge that may allow your customers to get more successful in their pursuits.

Where else is Customer Success vital at this stage? FIRST RESPONSE TIME. Of course, this Customer Success process works best if the Customer Success team is responsible for the chat with the Customer. We ought to remember that sometimes it is taken care of by the marketing, sales or a totally independent team.

It’s one of those CS metrics that are so basic that may be overlooked, but at the same time, this is the one that may count the most. Improving your First Response Time may bring you incredible results, and it doesn’t require a lot of effort. In today’s world, people don’t have time to wait for someone to kindly response to their feedback or request. Nobody has time for that. customers want to get their answers and solutions, and they want them NOW (or even faster).

Onboarding

Onboarding is considered the most important stage in the whole customer lifecycle. This phase starts at the moment of customer registration and usually ends when they gain value from the service or the product. This is the moment when it is the most important to establish a good relationship with them, as it will be the basis of future interactions.

When it comes to onboarding of the new customers, the mistakes made during this stage may later result in bigger issues. Implementing Customer Success strategies may save you a lot of time and resources that would have to be used later. The first Customer Success process that should give great results is IMMEDIATE REACTION TO CUSTOMER FEEDBACK. It is vital to hear your customers out when they notify of issues or struggles.

SuperOffice, in its 2017 Customer Service Benchmark Report, found that 41% of the researched companies did not respond to a customer service request, but also that the average response time was 13 hours. That is inconceivable for a good Customer Success team. We should always keep in mind that Customer’s wasted time may cost your business dearly. As your success is interlinked with theirs, it’s better to assist them and pay heed to their needs.

The thing is, this strategy is very similar to First Response Time, but that is just the tip of an iceberg. The reaction to customer feedback doesn’t only mean a reply, it may also require specific actions to take:

As an example, let’s imagine that our customer at the onboarding stage reports a bug. How should we react? We notify them that we received the report and that we are taking care of it. Then, we fix the bug ASAP and notify the customer, that all is working now. Why bother? If you ignore customer’s issue report or procrastinate too much with fixing it, there is a high chance that they’ll churn or just not even finish the onboarding process.

Have you ever been wondering why some customers never actually use the service provided by your business or why they churn quickly after the onboarding? The SIMPLIFICATION is the Customer Success process to remedy that.

The solution is to make it all SIMPLE. Assist your new customer whenever it’s possible and create guides and manuals that are clear, user-friendly and that allow them to use the service for their needs. Don’t create a guide with several thousand words – instead, address the most common issues and make them available to the users. It is astounding how powerful this strategy is.

Does it work? Well, it did work for us. We introduced simplification in many areas of our work and Customer Success (a good example: simplified guides in our Knowledge Base) and we’ve already had positive feedback from our customers

Customer Engagement

The Customer Engagement stage, also called the nurture stage, is the time of the biggest growth in the Customer Lifecycle. It’s at this stage where the customer should use your service regularly and get the results they need.

What’s great is that at this stage you can implement Customer Success processes that were already mentioned and therefore they may provide results on various levels.

The strategies mentioned are SIMPLIFICATION, FIRST RESPONSE TIME and IMMEDIATE ACTION TO CUSTOMER’S FEEDBACK…

Why are those three strategies so important for this process?

When it comes to the simplification, it’s very straightforward: the easier it is for the customer to use the survey, the higher the probability of their constant use. The more they use the app, the more probable is their retention…

The first response time and immediate action to Customer’s feedback are as vital for this stage as they are with the others, especially since more experienced users may notice more mistakes or bugs that need to be fixed. Addressing their issues and rectifying them ASAP is the way to go. The longer a paying customer has to wait for the assistance, the more probable it is that they’ll cancel the subscription when the time comes or maybe even earlier, if it’s possible.

Start today!

It doesn’t matter if you are at the beginning of your adventure with Customer Success or if you work with it on a daily basis. It’s always good to implement the above processes, as their results far surpass the investment. Whether you choose to focus on your Lead Creation, Onboarding, Churn Prevention, Customer Engagement or Value Increase, start right now to boost your business in 2019.